Let the Whales Fight, This Shrimp is Leaving! - Chapter 53

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 53
Unlike when he’d meant to rise and leave, Deyan Boislav Nemanic remained rooted to the spot, unable to take a single step.
The Gardener, interpreting this hesitation somehow, descended nimbly from the ladder.
“Would you like to climb up and see?”
“Me?”
“Yes. The chicks have just hatched—fluffy little things, absolutely adorable.”
At the Gardener’s suggestion, Deyan looked up again at the birdhouse the man had been tending.
A small chick poked its head out through the hole, pecked at the seed the Gardener had scattered, then quickly ducked back inside.
“We’ve hung nesting boxes in the Garden trees. After the heavy rain yesterday, I’ve been checking their condition. They were still eggs last week, but today I found they’d already hatched.”
Deyan heard the explanation with only half an ear, then shook his head.
“No. Never mind.”
He didn’t want to startle the birds by peering in himself.
Apparently surprised by the refusal, the Gardener asked again.
“You don’t care for birds?”
“I don’t like or dislike them. It’s just—if I look in, the mother bird will probably take fright.”
“I see.”
At his candid reply, the Gardener’s face broke into a smile.
The weathered creases around his eyes were striking, fitting his rugged appearance.
Deyan thought the conversation had ended and he should move on, but on impulse, he added one more thing.
“There’s something I’d like to ask, actually.”
“Please, go ahead.”
“I want to say upfront—I’m not criticizing you.”
“Yes, I understand.”
The Gardener tilted his head with a look of confusion but waited quietly for what Deyan would say next.
Before speaking, Deyan turned the words over in his mouth several times, choosing them carefully.
He’d never realized it would be this difficult to strike up a conversation with a common gardener.
Except for Glay Holdin, Deyan had never had reason for unnecessary conversation with anyone, and now he discovered his own lack of eloquence.
“Is it customary here for everyone to…. speak so freely?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What I mean is…. Why did you address me so casually?”
“Hmm.”
The Gardener fell silent.
Deyan clenched his fists, worried the man had misunderstood and taken offense.
He rubbed the rough, thumbless scar on his forefinger against the other prints, waiting for an answer, when the Gardener suddenly burst out laughing.
“Isn’t this just a place where people live like anywhere else? When you grow fond of someone, when you care for them—sometimes you speak to them naturally.”
“…Did you do that often before?”
“I try not to address outside guests. But the people of the Grand Ducal House often speak to me first.”
The Gardener went on to say that the servants of the Grand Ducal House who come and go sometimes ask after his welfare, remember his face, and inquire how he’s been.
At those words, Deyan’s mind drifted to the Count Nemanic Estate.
Nearly every outer wall visible there was grey ash.
Even at midday, there were shadowed corners, as if storm clouds hung perpetually overhead—a place that felt bleak.
His own estate was vast and desolate to begin with, and with so few servants, the entire atmosphere sank under a thick pall.
The shortage of servants was his fault.
The moment even the smallest wound drew blood, he lost his mind to murderous urges, and people kept dying.
In his younger years, the Demon claimed his reason more easily still, yet even knowing Deyan’s state, Glay Holdin had to place a sword in his hands.
“The Emperor’s intentions are transparent enough—shouldn’t you at least be able to protect your own life?”
“You won’t die easily anyway. If you suffer fewer wounds, you’ll commit fewer murders.”
When training was still unfamiliar, he hurt himself daily.
And so people died daily.
His Swordsmanship master, of course. The soldier who sparred with him. The servant who brought him medicine and bandages. The maid who fetched water to drink.
After that, servants ignorant of Deyan’s Contract with the Demon fled in terror.
Deyan understood them.
One couldn’t risk a precious life merely for a few coins.
Even now it remained much the same, but back then, the Count Nemanic Estate had been nothing less than a beast’s cage.
A cruel beast’s cage—the kind where a monster that tore people to death lived.
Tall grey walls and spartan rooms without decoration suited it perfectly.
The only color came from formally planted roses in the Garden, their vines the sole ornament.
Even those withered in season, drooping their heads until they looked grotesque.
That was why Deyan held no attachment to his estate.
Though he returned because it was his only refuge, he’d never truly bonded with it.
But this place was different.
‘No wonder she wanted to protect it so fiercely.’
This was a place where warmth somehow lingered.
“Would you care to come along, if you don’t mind?”
While Deyan was lost in thought, the Gardener, having put away the ladder, asked him this.
Deyan shook off his reverie and looked at the Gardener.
The ladder tucked under the man’s arm looked far too large for him.
“Where to?”
“It’s time to change the flowers we keep in the Ducal Princess’s room. I thought I’d cut a few nice ones. What do you say?”
In other words, he was asking Deyan to come pick flowers for Idir Hubert.
Deyan wondered for a moment if the man had mistaken him for someone fond of Idir, but decided not to mention it.
“All right then.”
“Oh my!”
Instead, he plucked the large ladder from the Gardener’s grip and gestured for him to lead the way.
“Please, let me carry it. How could I let a guest bear the burden?”
“Which way should we go?”
Deyan ignored the flustered Gardener.
Sensing the man’s resolve, the Gardener relented and set off ahead at a brisk pace.
Past the neatly trimmed shrubs lay a small Greenhouse.
Compact enough to take in at a glance, the Greenhouse was warm and humid.
The smell of fresh soil mixed with manure and the brine-like scent of water.
The environment was far from beautiful, yet the flowers blooming within captured the eye entirely.
In a broad, well-tended bed, flowers of various kinds grew in orderly rows, their colors a vibrant patchwork.
The Gardener approached and began selecting appropriately varied blooms.
Once Deyan had propped the ladder safely against the Greenhouse wall, he crouched beside the man.
“The Ducal Princess does like flowers with vivid color, but she prefers small, delicate blossoms even more.”
“Most would favor the showy sort.”
“She is different.”
The warmth in the Gardener’s eyes as he spoke of Idir’s taste was like sunlight pouring through the Greenhouse glass.
Had Deyan not known the man was a gardener, he’d have mistaken him for Idir’s father—such tenderness poured from him toward her.
“She says such flowers harmonize more beautifully together.”
His chest constricted.
Something heavy seemed to press down inside him, leaving him both suffocated and agitated.
“Nor does she like flowers cut too abundantly. She grieves when a bloom wilts the moment it’s severed.”
“……”
“The Ducal Princess is that kind and gentle.”
“I…”
I know.
He barely stopped himself from saying it aloud.
‘What do I know of the Ducal Princess?’
If not for yesterday, he’d never have perceived even a speck of the burdens she’d carried all her life.
The Gardener carefully removed excess leaves from the fresh-cut stem and arranged the flowers into a neat bundle.
Then he handed them to Deyan.
“I’m deeply grateful that you protected the Ducal Princess yesterday.”
Deyan stared at the Gardener, holding the flowers numbly.
It felt as though he’d been the one receiving a gift.
Even knowing it was a misunderstanding, his chest ached.
He wanted to bury his head and shove his fingers deep into his mouth, to retch up every trace of this nameless sensation that tickled and cramped inside him.
Perhaps then this suffocation would ease.
“On behalf of all in this estate, I offer my thanks.”
The Gardener rose abruptly, removed his hat, and bowed deeply to Deyan.
Even from his reddish-brown crown, sparse with age, the passage of time was evident.
In that moment, Deyan finally understood what the sensation was.
It was discomfort.
The entire Grand Ducal Castle was protecting Idir Hubert.
While she strove to shield them, they too labored to care for her.
How could someone who was, to these people, almost her enemy dare to seek their kindness?
Sharp guilt crystallized in his chest.
It was a good place.
A place that even Deyan wished to protect.
In that instant, he understood Idir Hubert a little better.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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